MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

8/18 Lineup

Ryan Theriot was back and leading off for the Cubs Tuesday. Theriot had been sidelined because of the stomach flu and arrived Tuesday in San Diego. Here’s the lineup:

SS Theriot

RF Bradley

1B Lee

3B Ramirez

CF Fukudome

LF Soriano

2B Baker

C Soto

P Dempster

– Carrie Muskat

Share this:

Like this:

Related

7 Comments

I have lost all interest in watching this team. They have lost the will to compete, so why should I care if they win or lose? I will never understand how a lineup with all these lucrative contracts can produce such subpar results.

The Chicago Cubs have the most passionate fan base in Major League Baseball, so why would a guy like Soriano sign with them? Did he not understand his lack of passion for the game would come back to haunt him at the first sign of trouble? Poor performance for a guy making $136 million is bad enough, but the lack of hustle is inexcusable. As Brenly said in the series vs Colorado, is it so much to ask for these guys to run out EVERYTHING and hustle after every ball? YOU ARE GETTING PAID MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO PLAY A GAME!!!! It sickens me, but i’ll keep supporting the team because I was born a Cubs fan and i’ll die a Cubs fan. Kosuke last year was anemic at the plate during the last 2 months of the season, but at least he hustled. He cared when he made outs, when he struggled. Soriano strikes out, or Gregg blows a save, but they look like actors to me. They only care until they get to the tunnel and they shrug it off because they still get paid.

Hendry deserves some blame as well. No team speed, thin bench, no real lefthander out of the pen. Throw in the fact that they do not have a true playoff ace, and this team was not built to win a title. You need a Peavy like starter come October to compete. Look at the top 2 starters for the current playoff teams (Phillies, Cards, Dodgers, Giants). With the exception of LA (Billingsley and Kuroda/Wolf), all have 2 legitimate aces. The Cubs posess a mediocre ace and, two #2 starters, a middle of the road big league starter, and Randy Wells, who will not sustain his success because the velocity/stuff is not there.

Maybe in a few years when they plug these holes and bring guys in who hustle will they have a chance to make some noise.

It’s now MAYBE next owner not maybe next year…Being that pitching is aweful maybe we should let the pitching coach go bye bye like they did the hitting coach. Rothschild hasn’t done anything and can’t even control Zambrano…so what’s his role???

The Cubs are a disaster. They only have three regulars in the lineup worth anything; Ramirez, Lee and Theriot. The pitching is erratic and the bullpen stinks. Jim Henry has done the worst job of any GM in the league this year. Every move he made this year has backfired. He has got to go. Can’t blame Lou for the players he was given to work with.
They should bring in somone to run this team from either the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies or Cardinals. At least they know how to build winning organizations. It starts with the farm system, another Cub failure. Even the Yankees have better home grown talent, i. e. Jeter, Cano, Posada, Rivera and Petitte. Who do the Cubs have that are as good as any of them? That’s right – zero, which sums up the the whole Cub organization. By the way, the Cubs are the only non expansion team in the past 40 years not to make it to the World Series. The others are the Mariners, Rangers and Natinals. What a joke.

I must agree to some extent – but especially about Jim Hendry – if we had kept Mark DeRosa (who Lou called the most valuable player on the team last year) and Kerry Wood we would not be in this mess. Hendry has made some very, very poor decisions and perhaps instead of firing the batting coach they should have looked at the GM.
As far as Soriano goes – I believe he is showing more hustle than in the past and I say to cut him a little slack. I too have been down on him because of this but I do see improvement in that area. ONE great acquisition that was made was Baker! I love when he comes to bat because you know he is probably going to get a hit – excellent production guy. I do like Mike Fontenot – but he just has not been producing much lateley and let’s face it – that is what they get paid for. Mike’s defense has usually been excellent but he has been making some errors lateley so I think replacing him with Baker was the right move and keeping Mike on the bench for back up and extra-inning games, etc would be strategically correct. Ramirez is a question mark for me – sorry he got hurt – but since he has been back has not shown much of anything except the fact that he is prone to injury again. A Hill-Sachs injury (which I believe is what he had) is oftentimes a chronic repetitive thing. May want to look at unloading that big salary and using Jake until such time as we find another excellent third baseman (assuming Hendry would know one if it hit him in the face). But I too will remain a Cub fan because that is what we do – just please, please, please get a general manager who knows something about baseball and not just economics!

Jim Hendry must go.
I think I’ll start every comment with that sentence just to get it out of the way and keep the mantra going. Baker was such a typical move by Hendry, he caught a break as I believe that Baker could have been had by any team, i’t not like Hendry orchestrated a terreiffic deal. In fact, the deal for Baker should have been just about the only deal Hendry NEEDED to make this season, a nice little “tweak” by bringing in a mult-dimensional player to offset the loss of DeRosa (which never should have become a loss) but instead of that Hendry goes for the “big splash”, “big name” type of move in bringing in guys like Soriano, Bradley, even Fukodome was the “Japanes player of the day” and he had to have him as well all the while overlooking his own farm system and WASTING valuable payroll dollars better spent on PITCHING. Even the managers he brings in have to have that “star” lable about them in first Baker and now Pinella, by no means do I mean they are BAD managers just that they are the big fish that Hendry likes to reel in so it looks to the world he is on top of his game…NOT. Get outta town Hendry, you’re making us ill!!!!

OK DIE HARD CUBBIE FAN WE ALLL KNOW THAT HENDRY HAS DONE A BAD JOB AND NEED TO BE LET GO LOU P WAS NOT A BAD HIRE NOT THIS LOU BUT THE REAL LOU THE NO NONSENSE LOU THE WHO THE GAME THE RIGHT WAY HARD AND WANTED PLAYERS TO DO THE SAME HE NOW LET PLAYERS GET AWAY WITHSUBSTANDER PLAY FUKUDOME AND BRADLEY ARE GOOD PLAYER BUT OUT OF PROSITION AS FOR FUKUDOME SET HIM UP WITH RICHIE FISK AS HIS HITTING COACH NOT TO SORRYANO I LIKE HIM BUT UNDER THE RIGHT SITUATION HE ALSO MIGHT NEED TO SEE R.F AS A HITTING COACH LET CALLUP SOME MINOR LEAGER LIKE KYLER BURKE &RYAN FLAHERLY &JAMES ADDUCI & HAK_JU LEE JOSE VALDEZ LUKE SOMMER ANTHONY CAMPANA JOHN GRIFFIN ANDBRAD SNYDER NOW BRING IN GREG MADDUX AND JOHN SMOLTZ TO TEACH MAMOL GRUZ BIG Z AND OTHER CONTROL OR HOW TO USE THE SR\TRIK ZONE TOO THIER FAVOR I HAVE BEEN A CUB FAN FOR CLOSE TO 49 YEARS I WILL DIE ONE WIN OR LOSE

Jim Hendry must go.
Roman121, Right, Lou was not a bad hire, I’m not saying he is a bad manager, just that he landed in Hendry’s comfort zone and the alterior motive to Hendry signing him was to be the “General Manager that signed Pinella” beating other GM’s to the punch, just like with Soriano.
If I had a choice I wouldn’t mind keeping Lou as manager as long as a new GM can come in and MIRACULOUSLY clean up the mess Hendry created. And by the way being a fan IS win or lose, doesn’t mean we have to be CONTENT with BAD MANAGEMENT.

Meta

The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.